What do you say to make conversations with strangers?Columnist LZ Granderson writes about the one question that only Americans ask first when they meet someone new (and it's true, whenever I travel abroad, no one ever asks me this question - not at first, anyhow):
There isn't a question that's more quintessentially American than "What do you do for a living?"
It is just safe enough to start a conversation with a stranger, it is universal enough so anyone can answer, and it strikes right to the core of what our culture values most -- money. [...]
Since the end of the 20th century, "What do you do for a living?" has ceased to be an inquiry about how someone spends their time during normal business hours and instead serves as a slightly grating, socially acceptable manner in which we remind each other of the stuff we don't have or will never get.
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